Trust Nobody

I sometimes wonder if smokers just accidentally became the prime target of Epidemiologists. During the Prohibition years in the USA, lots of States also banned tobacco. Little is said about it. The thinking was the same as that of alcohol – using tobacco was a waste of resources. Such monies should be spent on the family. ‘Smoking’ was immoral. “Lips that touch a cigarette will not touch mine”. (I made that up)

Timescales are important. It is important to realise that Prohibition came to an end only around 1933 – only six years before the outbreak of WW2. Around that same time, 1933, the Nazis were just beginning to deplore smoking on the grounds that smoking ‘weakened’ the glorious German youth. Doll visited Germany around that time and very possibly was motivated to start the hospital study because of his experiences in Germany pre-war. There is little doubt in my mind that plans for the Hospital Study were made during the war years if not before. Doll was also supported by the Rockefeller Institute, a notorious prohibitionist institution.

We have seen how those small beginnings have mushroomed into a veritable onslaught upon ordinary citizens who enjoy tobacco. As I see it, the bans are not nearly as important as the taxation. It is the taxation which presses most heavily upon poor smokers. Ban smoking on a beach? Who needs to go on a beach? The main word there is ‘needs’. Parks? The same. Etc.

It would not surprise me one bit if the scares about smoking were not ‘manufactured’ to support increases in taxation.

Do you see what I mean by saying ‘trust nobody’? The Kavanaugh hearing is a splendid example. ‘Truth’ is irrelevant. Only ‘perception’ matters.

What is ‘the truth’? Until epidemiology ceases to be just about differences, and begins to relate to absolute numbers, such as Ebola deaths in a relatively small population, I shall have zero faith in that ‘science’.

But we should all be aware that Epidemiology is not a ‘science’. It may be a ‘-ology’, but it is just counting. It does not reveal causes.

Until Gov regains its principles, I shall believe nothing that it or its appendages say.